What a Christmas. Webby took the day off on Friday so we could start preparing for our Christmas eve dinner party. The dinner party was planned as a small cozy dinner for six. Webby's parents, Cookie and us. Then we invited Pyng, which made 7. Still manageable. Anyway, we went food shopping at Megamall in the morning, and finished painting the kitchen door and it was soon time to go get ready for the Black and White Ball on Friday night.
We spent the rest of Friday afternoon primping at the hairdressers and the Kuku Bar for Webby's mani/pedicure and eyebrow shaping. After all that, we were exhausted, so Webby took a nap and woke up at about 10.30p.m.!
B was going to be performing at the Ball, and we didn't want to miss it. We quickly threw our clothes on. I wore my new black dress from Ms. Read, which was very tight. Why did I buy such a tight dress? Because they didn't have a bigger size, obviously. And the next size up was size 20. So between a size 12 and 20, I opted for the 12. I felt like I couldn't breathe, but I don't let silly things like that stop me from being vain. Webby wore her long black dress with a plunging neckline and back and looked absolutely gorgeous. I say this completely objectively of course.
We arrived at Saxophone at about 11.40p.m., but the place was still quite empty. B's show started around 12.15a.m. and Webby was voted 'Belle of the Ball', and won a bottle of CK perfume! We think B helped swing the vote our way though she completely denies it. After the show, we were a bit bored, so when GL started smsing us, saying that she, Kim and Fanda were having drinks at Sheraton Subang, we decided to go join them. By the time we retrieved our car from the jockey, it was already 1.30ish, and on the way to Subang, we were stopped and breath analysed. Fortunately I had only one glass of champagne so we could proceed. GL then smsed to say they were going home so we drove over there instead.
GL cooked some instant noodles and I invited them to come over for Christmas dinner, but Fanda and GL couldn't make it. Kim agreed to come over for dinner so that made 8, which was just fine for our dining table.
Anyway, we got home around 3a.m. and crashed.
I woke up at 8a.m. and finished wrapping presents and continued final preparations for dinner. After I put the turkey in the oven, I laid the table for 8, using our new Jim Thompson table settings. Then Pyng called and asked if Serina could join us, so of course I said yes. I added another setting and shuffled the seating arrangement. Then she called again and said could Pik Choo come too. Of course that was fine, I said, but that's it, yea, I said. My table can't fit anymore.
Fortunately there were no more additions. Until about 5 something, when Fanda smsed and said he could come in the end. I was pleased he could come but didn't know where to fit him in! I decided to open another table and put Pyng, Serina and Pik Choo there and it all looked quite good in the end. Webby also cooked her special Caribbean chicken to supplement the food, since we only bought a turkey for 8 people!
Cookie was one of the first few to arrive, but just as she got to our place, she had a phone call from a mutual friend, Fuzet, who had been in a car accident, so I asked if she wanted to join us for dinner. She did, so Cookie went to pick her up. Kim didn't turn up in the end, but we ended up with dinner for 11! The food turned out great. We were exhausted in the end, but had a wonderful time. I love Christmas.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Friendship
A friend sent this to me today... some of it is a bit cheesy but, I like the general idea..
1. I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you..
2. Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.
3. A true friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart.
4. The worst way to miss someone is to be sitting right beside them knowing you can't have them
5. Never frown, even when you are sad, because you never know who is falling in love with your smile.
6. To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.
7. Don't waste your time on a man/woman, who isn't willing to waste their time on you.
8. Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one, so that when we finally meet the person, we will know how to be grateful.
9. Don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened.
10. There's always going to be people that hurt you so what you have to do is keep on trusting and just be more careful about who you trust next time around.
11. Make yourself a better person and know who you are before you try and know someone else and expect them to know you.
12. Don't try so hard, the best things come when you least expect them to.
REMEMBER: WHATEVER HAPPENS, HAPPENS FOR A REASON.
1. I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you..
2. Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.
3. A true friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart.
4. The worst way to miss someone is to be sitting right beside them knowing you can't have them
5. Never frown, even when you are sad, because you never know who is falling in love with your smile.
6. To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.
7. Don't waste your time on a man/woman, who isn't willing to waste their time on you.
8. Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one, so that when we finally meet the person, we will know how to be grateful.
9. Don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened.
10. There's always going to be people that hurt you so what you have to do is keep on trusting and just be more careful about who you trust next time around.
11. Make yourself a better person and know who you are before you try and know someone else and expect them to know you.
12. Don't try so hard, the best things come when you least expect them to.
REMEMBER: WHATEVER HAPPENS, HAPPENS FOR A REASON.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Kids Christmas party with a difference
Cookie invited Webby, Sean and I to a Christmas party for orphans sometime ago. It was an annual party organised by a group of gay guys and sounded absolutely fascinating. We readily volunteered to help out. A couple of days before the party, Cookie tells me that we're meeting at 8am at Crowne Plaza Mutiara Hotel.
8am? On a Sunday morning?! I blinked at her. She explained that the kids will arrive around 10, so we need to blow balloons and deoorate the room. I blinked some more.
Blow balloons? Er.. how many balloons? My initial enthusiasm and magnanimity started waning ever so slightly.
Oh about 100 or so, she replied. I blinked rapidly. But there will be around 40 people there to help so it should be okay, she added. Relieved, we agreed to turn up at 8am on Sunday 18 December.
We eventually arrived at the Hotel around 8.15am and found the lower penthouse buzzing with people dressed in red and white.
Oh I forgot to tell you that the theme was red and white, Cookie said nonchalantly, dressed in a purple dress herself. Doryness is obviously contagious.
I'd not seen so many gay boys outside of Liquid for a long time. All dressed in cute little tight red shirts and white bottoms and vice versa. Very santa indeed. Someone had donated a helium tank so with Santa's many helpers, the balloons were filled, tied up with shiny silver or green or pink (of course) ribbons and released quickly.
The children from Sunbeam home arrived first. All dressed in black t-shirts with 'sunbeam' embroidered in yellow thread. There were a lot of them! They ran in and promptly attacked the balloons. I've never seen kids so excited about balloons. Then the kids from the other home arrived - the Agathians. Cookie was so excited about the gay thing, she called them the 'A-Gay-thians' as opposed to the 'A-geh-thians'.
Cookie, Webby and I were conscripted to be party games coordinators. I was initially horrified because I'm not good with kids but it turned out to be great. The kids were split into 5 groups of roughly 15-20 kids each, and they had to pick a name for their group. We had lionking, tiger, puma (that's US!), kingkong and donkey (no comment). We played a few games, of which the most popular was the bong game. We didn't win any of the games but I think everyone had a good time.
Food was served after the games, donated by Tai Thong, Domino's Pizza and the Hotel itself. Pretty yummy food actually. Then a magician/entertainer called Jee came. He was great with the kids! Bibi and Faery even turned up for support. After that was present time, when a Santa Claus sat on the podium and cheerfully doled out all the gifts donated from various kind corporations, like Padini. Each present was personally addressed with the names of each child, which was a nice touch.
We were supposed to do carolling, and Sean had been looking forward to that part of the day, but time ran out and before we knew it, the party was over and it was time to go home.
I thought it was absolutely fabulous that a bunch of queens could come together and organise such a wonderfully, selfless and meaningful event. Just before they left, the Sunbeam kids sang a little thank you song which brought a tear to the eyes of many of the organisers.
So thanks Cookie, for inviting us..... thanks all the great guys who organised it for doing such a fantastic job, and thanks to all the kids, who made us feel like we did something good.
8am? On a Sunday morning?! I blinked at her. She explained that the kids will arrive around 10, so we need to blow balloons and deoorate the room. I blinked some more.
Blow balloons? Er.. how many balloons? My initial enthusiasm and magnanimity started waning ever so slightly.
Oh about 100 or so, she replied. I blinked rapidly. But there will be around 40 people there to help so it should be okay, she added. Relieved, we agreed to turn up at 8am on Sunday 18 December.
We eventually arrived at the Hotel around 8.15am and found the lower penthouse buzzing with people dressed in red and white.
Oh I forgot to tell you that the theme was red and white, Cookie said nonchalantly, dressed in a purple dress herself. Doryness is obviously contagious.
I'd not seen so many gay boys outside of Liquid for a long time. All dressed in cute little tight red shirts and white bottoms and vice versa. Very santa indeed. Someone had donated a helium tank so with Santa's many helpers, the balloons were filled, tied up with shiny silver or green or pink (of course) ribbons and released quickly.
The children from Sunbeam home arrived first. All dressed in black t-shirts with 'sunbeam' embroidered in yellow thread. There were a lot of them! They ran in and promptly attacked the balloons. I've never seen kids so excited about balloons. Then the kids from the other home arrived - the Agathians. Cookie was so excited about the gay thing, she called them the 'A-Gay-thians' as opposed to the 'A-geh-thians'.
Cookie, Webby and I were conscripted to be party games coordinators. I was initially horrified because I'm not good with kids but it turned out to be great. The kids were split into 5 groups of roughly 15-20 kids each, and they had to pick a name for their group. We had lionking, tiger, puma (that's US!), kingkong and donkey (no comment). We played a few games, of which the most popular was the bong game. We didn't win any of the games but I think everyone had a good time.
Food was served after the games, donated by Tai Thong, Domino's Pizza and the Hotel itself. Pretty yummy food actually. Then a magician/entertainer called Jee came. He was great with the kids! Bibi and Faery even turned up for support. After that was present time, when a Santa Claus sat on the podium and cheerfully doled out all the gifts donated from various kind corporations, like Padini. Each present was personally addressed with the names of each child, which was a nice touch.
We were supposed to do carolling, and Sean had been looking forward to that part of the day, but time ran out and before we knew it, the party was over and it was time to go home.
I thought it was absolutely fabulous that a bunch of queens could come together and organise such a wonderfully, selfless and meaningful event. Just before they left, the Sunbeam kids sang a little thank you song which brought a tear to the eyes of many of the organisers.
So thanks Cookie, for inviting us..... thanks all the great guys who organised it for doing such a fantastic job, and thanks to all the kids, who made us feel like we did something good.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Killing, Karma and Karaoke
We are finally getting rid of our unwanted guests. Yes we have bloody termites.
RapidKill came yesterday to give me a quote for getting rid of them - 2 freaking thousand ringgit. Sigh. Guess if it has to be done it has to be done. They will be coming next Tuesday to annihilate them. So much for being Buddhist about it. I hummed and hawed for a couple of months, thinking I shouldn't kill, I shouldn't kill. But seeing the holes getting bigger and bigger and my wooden beams getting hollower and hollower, and yesterday, the RapidKill man knocking on the wood and peering manically at me saying "Can you hear them? Can you hear them? They are munching away on your wood..", I decided so be it. Screw my karma.
Anyway, after Mr. RapidKill left, I was feeling a bit depressed. Not about the bloody termites, they can rot in hell for all I care. Hmm not too Buddhist a thought either. Sigh. But this month was particularly heavy on the financial side. Total plumber bills for a broken pipe and stuffed drain had added up to another 2K. Sean's birthday party was RM400 and his camp was another RM280. Though I would never begrudge him these two. I was also tidying up and did my long overdue filing yesterday and added up the freaking cats' vet bills for the year which came to over 1K. There's a citibank bill due next week for just over 3K. And we have about 5k left in the bank, so minus 2k for the termite mass murders and 3k for citibank, that leaves us with one big fat zero. Whoopee do. Guess I will have to sell some stocks soon. Is that my karma ripening already? Buggerations.
We went to play badminton 7-9 in the evening, which was nice. S and I got there early so played one singles game. Suja turned up next, announcing that she forgot her raquet and was wearing her t-shirt inside out. I asked her if she was in a rush getting here. Anita came, showing off her new badminton shoes. Then finally Pyng, Sheryl and Hui Ting came, with Tracy arriving soon after. So it was an utter full house. Fortunately with my high sugar and high cholestrol, they voted that I play as much as possible, so I didn't sit out much. And when I did, I simply stared at the latest sudoku I am working on. I could only stare at it because I was stuck. I'll ask Cookie next time I see her.
After badminton, we headed home. GL had parked outside our house as she had her soroptimists' meeting at starKTV. They had invited us to join them but I had declined since S had a meeting at 10pm. Cookie called me just as we arrived home and said she and B were going to starKTV and would we like to join. I couldn't resist so had a shower and toddled over. They were in room 13 and I basically just listened to them sing. I smsed GL to tell her that I was in room 13 and she dropped by. She invited us to go to their room so we moved over. I went over first - there were only Kim, GL, a couple of soroptimist ladies and an unidentified man in the huge room. Then B, Cookie and a gymboy, Simon, came over. And another young man came over to join them. B and GL did some fabulous duets. GL insisted that she sing the female parts! That was quite hilarious. I liked their rendition of Endless Love personally. And of course I had to request Kim and GL to perform my favourite 'Tell Him'. Makes me feel funny inside, that song.
It was a lovely evening. So nice to hear people who can sing. I didn't sing myself as S wasn't there and I was way too daunted by the fine voices in the room. I went back at midnight and S was still awake and working. S is so sweet. She knows when $ matters upset me and she is always comforting. I know I have more than most so am actually very fortunate. Just now, Cookie told me about the Rwandan goat kit... it's only USD59.95 to provide two goats to a family in Rwanda. The goats will sustain the family for food and income. I've always loved the 'give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he can feed himself forever' theory. I guess I can put the goats on my credit card and send some cheer to Rwanda for Christmas. Anyone want to join me?
RapidKill came yesterday to give me a quote for getting rid of them - 2 freaking thousand ringgit. Sigh. Guess if it has to be done it has to be done. They will be coming next Tuesday to annihilate them. So much for being Buddhist about it. I hummed and hawed for a couple of months, thinking I shouldn't kill, I shouldn't kill. But seeing the holes getting bigger and bigger and my wooden beams getting hollower and hollower, and yesterday, the RapidKill man knocking on the wood and peering manically at me saying "Can you hear them? Can you hear them? They are munching away on your wood..", I decided so be it. Screw my karma.
Anyway, after Mr. RapidKill left, I was feeling a bit depressed. Not about the bloody termites, they can rot in hell for all I care. Hmm not too Buddhist a thought either. Sigh. But this month was particularly heavy on the financial side. Total plumber bills for a broken pipe and stuffed drain had added up to another 2K. Sean's birthday party was RM400 and his camp was another RM280. Though I would never begrudge him these two. I was also tidying up and did my long overdue filing yesterday and added up the freaking cats' vet bills for the year which came to over 1K. There's a citibank bill due next week for just over 3K. And we have about 5k left in the bank, so minus 2k for the termite mass murders and 3k for citibank, that leaves us with one big fat zero. Whoopee do. Guess I will have to sell some stocks soon. Is that my karma ripening already? Buggerations.
We went to play badminton 7-9 in the evening, which was nice. S and I got there early so played one singles game. Suja turned up next, announcing that she forgot her raquet and was wearing her t-shirt inside out. I asked her if she was in a rush getting here. Anita came, showing off her new badminton shoes. Then finally Pyng, Sheryl and Hui Ting came, with Tracy arriving soon after. So it was an utter full house. Fortunately with my high sugar and high cholestrol, they voted that I play as much as possible, so I didn't sit out much. And when I did, I simply stared at the latest sudoku I am working on. I could only stare at it because I was stuck. I'll ask Cookie next time I see her.
After badminton, we headed home. GL had parked outside our house as she had her soroptimists' meeting at starKTV. They had invited us to join them but I had declined since S had a meeting at 10pm. Cookie called me just as we arrived home and said she and B were going to starKTV and would we like to join. I couldn't resist so had a shower and toddled over. They were in room 13 and I basically just listened to them sing. I smsed GL to tell her that I was in room 13 and she dropped by. She invited us to go to their room so we moved over. I went over first - there were only Kim, GL, a couple of soroptimist ladies and an unidentified man in the huge room. Then B, Cookie and a gymboy, Simon, came over. And another young man came over to join them. B and GL did some fabulous duets. GL insisted that she sing the female parts! That was quite hilarious. I liked their rendition of Endless Love personally. And of course I had to request Kim and GL to perform my favourite 'Tell Him'. Makes me feel funny inside, that song.
It was a lovely evening. So nice to hear people who can sing. I didn't sing myself as S wasn't there and I was way too daunted by the fine voices in the room. I went back at midnight and S was still awake and working. S is so sweet. She knows when $ matters upset me and she is always comforting. I know I have more than most so am actually very fortunate. Just now, Cookie told me about the Rwandan goat kit... it's only USD59.95 to provide two goats to a family in Rwanda. The goats will sustain the family for food and income. I've always loved the 'give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he can feed himself forever' theory. I guess I can put the goats on my credit card and send some cheer to Rwanda for Christmas. Anyone want to join me?
Monday, December 12, 2005
Eating, Singing, Cleaning, Eating, Painting, Eating, Eating
What a weekend...
We wanted to paint our landing. So on Friday, we went to Home-Fix to look at paint. Susan suggested bright green while I wanted white, so we compromised on something euphemistically called 'Spearmint'. It actually smelt a bit minty too! Friday was spent moving furniture so we could start painting the next day. On Friday night, we still had enough energy to go karaoke. First, we had a yummy ribs dinner at Checkers with GL and Cookie. Then it was off to StarKTV, where we had a fabulous night and we stayed till 3.30am - finishing with 'Wouldn't it be lovely' and 'Lonely goatherd'... GL had a bit too much JD, but I only realised it when she started peeling the foam reindeers off the walls at Star KTV. We asked her to come over to sober up and she ended up sleeping on the sofa.
On Saturday, I was woken up early by Sean as usual. I went down to check if GL was still there and found her reading the note Susan had left for her. We had a chat and after she left, I started to work on the our landing/tv area. I started to scrape off the old paint and found it quite nostalgic, erasing the history of the past seven years - Sean's baby scrawls, tatty pokemon stickers, superglue from the time the maid tried to stick back some posters on the wall. That was sheer genius on her part. Blue tack didn't work, so let's use superglue!
Anyway, after removing the old paint, we had to dash off for lunch at Lyn's for a belated celebration of Sean's birthday, pizza for him and mozzarella basil salad for the adults. Absolutely delicious. I had forgotten what real tomatoes taste like. Sigh. I guess it's going to have to be vine tomatoes the next time I do the groceries. After lunch, we dropped Sean off at Pyng & Sheryl's to play with the other kids there, then we rushed for coffeebean at BSC with Cookie and Faery, and So Human aka Kelvin, and then ran back to Pyng &S heryl's for their 2nd housewarming. What a wonderful spread before us. Roti jala and nasi kunyit... satay.. rojak... gado gado... almost all imported from Penang. A truly moveable feast. However, the whole day had been basically a day of continuous ingestion so I couldn't eat much in the end. But we ta pau-ed quite a lot of food, so I got to enjoy it on Sunday!
Sunday morning, I dropped Sean off at Shalini's for his birthday treat and came back home to continue on our painting project! After removing the paint, we had to use putty to fill in holes in the wall, mostly where chunks of plaster fell out when we tried to remove the superglued posters. We also finished washing the walls. Then between Umi, Susan and myself, we managed to finish painting the whole room by the end of the afternoon! And we only had to go to the DIY shop twice, once to get the putty and the second time to get another can of paint. At RM30 per can, we used 3 cans, the putty cost under RM6, the magic sponge we used to clean the wall cost RM20 so all in all, the project cost RM116 and a lot of elbow grease. Not bad really and we now have a fabulous room. Well, I think so anyway.
Sunday night was finished off with tea at 5.30pm with Ruby and Henry, who visited with a gift from TR which was a lovely book. Then we had dinner at Cafe Cafe with GL, Kim and Tina. The food was a bit disappointing though - with the chef being too liberal with the salt. I wonder if the normal chef was on leave. The proprietors, Ben and Toto, were nowhere in sight either - which may be why the food was less than its normal standard. Oh well.
We went to sleep pretty exhausted but happy on Sunday night.
We wanted to paint our landing. So on Friday, we went to Home-Fix to look at paint. Susan suggested bright green while I wanted white, so we compromised on something euphemistically called 'Spearmint'. It actually smelt a bit minty too! Friday was spent moving furniture so we could start painting the next day. On Friday night, we still had enough energy to go karaoke. First, we had a yummy ribs dinner at Checkers with GL and Cookie. Then it was off to StarKTV, where we had a fabulous night and we stayed till 3.30am - finishing with 'Wouldn't it be lovely' and 'Lonely goatherd'... GL had a bit too much JD, but I only realised it when she started peeling the foam reindeers off the walls at Star KTV. We asked her to come over to sober up and she ended up sleeping on the sofa.
On Saturday, I was woken up early by Sean as usual. I went down to check if GL was still there and found her reading the note Susan had left for her. We had a chat and after she left, I started to work on the our landing/tv area. I started to scrape off the old paint and found it quite nostalgic, erasing the history of the past seven years - Sean's baby scrawls, tatty pokemon stickers, superglue from the time the maid tried to stick back some posters on the wall. That was sheer genius on her part. Blue tack didn't work, so let's use superglue!
Anyway, after removing the old paint, we had to dash off for lunch at Lyn's for a belated celebration of Sean's birthday, pizza for him and mozzarella basil salad for the adults. Absolutely delicious. I had forgotten what real tomatoes taste like. Sigh. I guess it's going to have to be vine tomatoes the next time I do the groceries. After lunch, we dropped Sean off at Pyng & Sheryl's to play with the other kids there, then we rushed for coffeebean at BSC with Cookie and Faery, and So Human aka Kelvin, and then ran back to Pyng &S heryl's for their 2nd housewarming. What a wonderful spread before us. Roti jala and nasi kunyit... satay.. rojak... gado gado... almost all imported from Penang. A truly moveable feast. However, the whole day had been basically a day of continuous ingestion so I couldn't eat much in the end. But we ta pau-ed quite a lot of food, so I got to enjoy it on Sunday!
Sunday morning, I dropped Sean off at Shalini's for his birthday treat and came back home to continue on our painting project! After removing the paint, we had to use putty to fill in holes in the wall, mostly where chunks of plaster fell out when we tried to remove the superglued posters. We also finished washing the walls. Then between Umi, Susan and myself, we managed to finish painting the whole room by the end of the afternoon! And we only had to go to the DIY shop twice, once to get the putty and the second time to get another can of paint. At RM30 per can, we used 3 cans, the putty cost under RM6, the magic sponge we used to clean the wall cost RM20 so all in all, the project cost RM116 and a lot of elbow grease. Not bad really and we now have a fabulous room. Well, I think so anyway.
Sunday night was finished off with tea at 5.30pm with Ruby and Henry, who visited with a gift from TR which was a lovely book. Then we had dinner at Cafe Cafe with GL, Kim and Tina. The food was a bit disappointing though - with the chef being too liberal with the salt. I wonder if the normal chef was on leave. The proprietors, Ben and Toto, were nowhere in sight either - which may be why the food was less than its normal standard. Oh well.
We went to sleep pretty exhausted but happy on Sunday night.
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